


Ingary Girls

by canis_m



Category: Diana Wynne Jones Novels
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-27
Updated: 2006-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-07 02:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_m/pseuds/canis_m
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A unicorn with very poor timing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ingary Girls

  
Almost as soon as the Witch was gone, the Waste began to change. It didn't stop being a desert, in the essential sense, but it grew more and more like the sort of desert where lizards darted and flowers bloomed after bursts of unexpected rain. Oases spang up like bean sprouts overnight. The gardens tended first by Wizard Suliman burgeoned, thickening in all directions, until Sophie began to wonder if a scythe might serve her better than her stick.

They had kept the flower shop for the time being. Although the sign now read

H. JENKINS FRESH FLOWERS DAILY  
SORCERY &amp; CONSULTING  
PROFESSIONAL WEED CONTROL

the morning routine was not much altered. With the luxury of supple limbs Sophie crouched in sunshine to gather orchids on the fringes of the bog. She was thinking that someone ought to propose a different name for the Waste, now that it was not so very wasted, when she saw the unicorn.

It had paused on the crest of the first bare rise. It was white, less like a horse than a deer and less like a deer than an oryx, but Sophie had never seen an oryx, let alone a unicorn. She did not exclaim. She covered her mouth with her garden glove and in doing so smeared plant juices on her chin. The unicorn pawed the earth. Its tail flickered. As it sidled downslope toward her Sophie noticed (she could hardly help noticing) that it was not an it, but a he. A cloud of butterflies blurred the distance between them. She had never been a romantic, but she had been eight years old once, like any other girl. She wiped her cheek and stood with ladyslippers in yellow disarray about her feet.

Violets bloomed where the unicorn trod. The air grew palpable with scent. Before she knew it Sophie was speaking, holding out an open palm.

"Aren't you the handsome one," she said. "Come on, don't be shy."

The unicorn was pleased to be persuaded. He stepped nearer and nearer, picking across the soggy turf on fastidious hooves. His eye fixed not on Sophie's hand but on her lap. His muzzle looked like crushed velvet. Her fingers twitched. She promised him clover and daisy chains, honeysuckle, bluebells--anything he liked. She hardly knew what she was mumbling. An Ingary girl should know better, her father would have said. The unicorn hovered just out of reach.

A breeze stirred at that moment, sluggish and hot. He caught a whiff of her. The butterflies scattered. He snorted like a boy with a noseful of snot and sprang backward, head tossing, to dash away into the desert. His lilywhite rump was the last view Sophie had of him. She stood in her tracks turning violently red.

*

Inside the castle Calcifer flared. "Snubbed," he said. "I win!"

Michael looked up from his buttered toast. "Bother," he said, but there was no retracting the bet. He hoped Calficer would ask for payment in logs instead of vital organs. "You might warn Howl," he added, since Howl was still upstairs in bed.

"What for?"

"So he can run?"

As a demon Calcifer had no sense of masculine loyalty. From the windowsill he crackled. He was under no obligation, he said, and it was too late, besides, as even without seven-league boots Sophie was already storming the door.


End file.
